Fun with the GRANDS....

Well, I had great fun over the past few days babysitting Dylan, Drew and Katie! We hiked in the woods behind the fish hatchery. Katie wanted to know if there were dinosaurs there!

We fed the fish, and then watched the big TRAIN go by, that was a hit.

We played in the Camas park several times- they especially loved the old fashioned merry-go-round!

And of course, there were many hours in the hot tub, even though they were only here 2 days!

We played computer games, listened to songs, watched movies, and in general had a lot of fun.

I do remember now how busy life was with lots of small children! Bless you Becky!

Grandchildren

While Becky is in Houston on her freedom vacation, I am helping by watching the children. We are having fun, but it sure is noisier around here and LOTS more stuff on the floor to step around! We have great plans for the park, the river beach, the hot tub, and more, but... it is still 60 degrees and it is already 1:30 pm in the end of July! But, it is supposed to warm up to 75 today, perhaps by 5 pm and then tomorrow they say a busy and warm 90! fun here we come! and Kyle is suffering in my Miata driving around Beaverton with the top down. Poor Kyle. :)

School is out!

Yay! It is done, but... I have still had to go to to work for bargaining for the school district on behalf of special ed and to finish up the interviewing and staffing for my department, but.. the best part is that I can sleep in until I want to get up, not when the alarm clock goes off! I can't wait until I don't have to go in at all, but that isn't until after the 25th. Summer is calling.

A furry little visitor

Well we scared him to death, but I think we are equal! 3 days ago I was sitting at my computer in the kitchen and I saw a small dark rat like thing run from under the refrigerator to the oven. Oh my- not rats! I was worried, and Arnie had left us a dead mouse just that morning on the floor. But as I sat and worked I saw it again and realized it was something different, didn't look like a rat or a mouse... and then in about 2 hours on Sunday afternoon I saw that it was a very scared little chipmunk.

I tried to entice him out with food and he was good at it and snitched it before I could catch him, but I outsmarted him today! I left a little plastic box trapping cage and put a cracker with some peanut butter on it in the end and when I got home from work today... voila, there he was all sweaty from working to turn around and get out. But, he doesn't know how lucky he is that I caught him this way and Arnie didn't! I released him into the large forest of blackberries behind the house and he was off in a flash.

A Tribute to Dad

I was sitting in church today listening to the speaker and I began to think of all the things we had done as a family and what a good father Dad was. So, I thought I would write a tribute to the man in my life and remember some of the great things he has done to bring up 5 such great kids.

• tells me he loves me nearly each and every day and sometimes several times
• changed diapers in the middle of the night every night so I could sleep a few minutes more before feeding the baby
• put up with a waterbed so I could be comfortable while pregnant
• snuggled with many a kid
• let you ride on his shoulders while you drooled in his hair
• reading stories to the kids by the hours, and yes, elaborating immensely too!
• telling you kids scary stories and made up stories
• singing the Teddy Bears Picnic until we were sick of it!
• teaching you all to count by 1,2, 5s and 10s when you were very young
• asking the boys how many times the tire goes around when we drove to California
• thinking up the silly magnet game of 10 pieces of magnet on the dashboard so you little kids would have a visual of how far we were on our trip and not ask the inevitable question "Are we there yet?"
• took the "cries" out of each of you with a big spoon while you laid down on your back
• rough housed and played airplane and horsey
• taught you not to be afraid of heights and to jump off into his arms
• regretting some of his early spanking skills on the boys and resolutely determining he would never do that again
• coaching soccer for years when you first started playing
• driving you to many, many, many soccer games, concerts, activities, piano lessons and scouting adventures
• paid you to pick up rocks out of our garden so you would learn the value of work and $
• drove countless Sunday mornings and many an afternoon on the paper route
• gave up his old ways to become a spiritual man and a good Latter Day Saint
• always did/does his home teaching and took the boys along to learn
• is a great Missionary and was so supportive of his own kids on their missions, he even wrote them letters which he never did before!
• giving the boys the Priesthood
• giving a name and a blessing to each of the girls
• being a rock solid Dad to all our kids, we were all the same family in his eyes and mine
• Christopher - hiking with you in central Oregon with your friend at Red Rock
• Kevin - driving quickly to school one morning when a little boy ran too hard into the gym wall and broke his arm in half
• Becky - becoming Superman and flying over the hedges and down the hill when he heard his little girl was hit by a car and having enough faith in you to send you half way around the world to Australia
• Lori - insisting Mom that we buy a guitar for you and sending his little girl on a mission far, far away praying his blond haired daughter would be safe
• Jenno - being so touched that you sang at your Baccalaureate that he had a tear in his eye
• loving to hear all his children sing
• attending many YE and MVHS choral concerts and loving it
• making a select tape of dubbed choral songs his kids had sung and playing it in his car so he could hear them
• worrying and loving you all
• going on scouting and YMYW raft trips down the Deschutes
• teaching you about hiking and camping and the out of doors
• taught you to fix your bikes
• teaching you to ride your bikes on the church parking lot
• then... teaching you to drive your cars safely - again on the church parking lot
• praying for you to be safe while driving your car - not on the church parking lot
• waiting up for you to get home from a date making sure you were safe
• sharing with you stories of his youth to help you understand where not to make the same mistakes
• telling you he would "rip your face off" and then smile
• or telling you he would hang you upside down on the Johnson's tree until your nostrils filled with water unless you behaved
• built a rope swing
• taught you to climb "Mount Tree"
• taught you right and wrong, even making you take things back and apologize to people when you have "taken" them
• played catch on the front lawn
• stuffed many an Easter egg
• gave up his bachelorhood idea of long idyllic family hikes into the wilderness so as a family we could have shorter hikes that everyone could do
• camped in a campground instead of the distant woods so kids and Mom could have bathrooms and water
• tried to teach you some about the world and politics
• hugged and kissed many a boo boo - Lori remember the doosy you got going down the hill at the campground when you were about 6 and then the mosquitos bit you that night and your eyes swelled shut and you could barely see in the morning. Dad felt so badly for you.
• SUPPLIED YOU WITH A SENSE OF ADVENTURE AND DARING which stood you well as kids and as adults
• struggled to learn to use the computer because it was the new thing despite how hard it was
• WORKING MANY, MANY EXTRA OR LONG SHIFTS to put food on the table, pay for missions, pay for college, pay for extra cars, pay for living in a family of 7
• worked with the boys and taught them many things about fixing "stuff"
• made great pine wood derby cars with his boys
• was a great Scout Dad so proud of his Eagle Scout boys
• listened to countless piano lessons and practicing and concerts despite the sound :)
• went to your open houses at school, encouraged you to do your best
• hugged and cuddled you even when you were big
• gave you a Father's Blessing
• is a proud and happy Grandpa of 12 - he so loves and misses his grandchildren
• is a dork, a silly goose, a goofball dad
• remembers how to be a little kid even when he is 60+
• I know there are many more, but this blog is long enough, but I want you to all honor Dad today and remember what a great man, father and husband he has been over the years despite some difficult times.

Starlight Parade

Last Saturday evening I went with Becky, Kyle and the kids to the Starlight Parade in downtown Portland. I hadn't been to that in about 10 years and we had so much fun. Dad was in Spokane for the long weekend at the WA State Republican Convention. I drove to Beaverton and met them at their house where we all went in their van to the MAX train and came into town. The kids thought it was super to ride on the MAX and go under the tunnel by the zoo.

Once in town, there was a light sprinkle and we quickly found a nice space on the street. Shortly after, they closed the street and the kids were able to draw chalk figures, dance, play ball and just have a dancing blast in the street!

To start it off was the Starlight Run and the kids all lined up in the middle to have the runners slap their hands. Such memories.

Tyler and I played fun little games and I got this great shot of him mimicing me. Silly boy.

I am alive and kicking!

OK, I am really, really bad at this weekly blog thing. I mean to, and I think about it during the week, and even think about what pictures and fun things have happened... and then Sunday comes and I run out of time and nothing gets done. So, here is my attempt to resurrect my oldy, moldy blog.

Lots of fun things have happened for me in the past several months! I have 3 new grandbabies, Tyler (Jan), Addie (April) & Daniel (April) and I have gotten to see them all. Tyler's blessing was last Sunday and he is such a darling little chunk. He fell asleep in my chest in Sacrament and we cuddled all through church. Becky got a break!

Lori is my secret IHop buddy now. We love IHop for lunch. Must run in the family because so does Jenno! It was so much fun hugging those tiny little babies and helping the new moms learn a few new things about how to keep them awake or to soothe them to sleep. Jenni and Kenny brought me Daniel late one night upstairs in my room as he was just too happy to be awake and play with them and poor Kenny had to get some sleep so he could teach school the next day. I spent the next hour cooing and playing with him and then he fell asleep on my chest while I sat on the couch, so from 1 am until 6 am, we slept cozily. Such memories.

Lori's little Addie looks so much like Lori did as a baby. Just like Katie looks so much like Becky did as a child. We decided that Daniel is a good mix between Jenni and Kenny. And Tyler, he looks like Kyle.

Kenny and Jenni helped make a Wii video junkie out of me! I now race with the best of them on MarioCart, except Kenny of course, he is darn good and can beat us all! Dad and I have a Wii and love it! We have had it for months now and were frustrated that the old Mario Cart was fun but hard to play with the controllers. So, Jenni and Kenny got me the new Mario CArt for Wii and we can drive with our steering wheels now! It is a real hoot, and we are good enough now to do time trials across the USA on the shared network and not always be in the bottom 1/3!

Dad got me the new WiiFit for my birthday and I LOVE it! Jenni and Kenny went at midnight when it came out while I was in Houston and got one so we had played it there and loved it. Once I got home, I wanted to get mine, but everywhere I went was out. I called and called and one night about 8:30 I called Game Crazy on a whim and voila, they had 3 magically. I had them hold one and I went over. I don't think he was expecting a 57 year old lady, but....my Wii Fit age is 48 soooooo, I guess I am entitled. :)

Dad and I especially like the downhill jump and slalom, the aerobic step dance, the fun jogs thru the park, and the penguin slide. Oh, tightrope walking is great too. I finally nailed that one and made top score. The way it works is you log in everyday by standing ont he Wii Fit board which is about 14x24" and it takes your weight and BMI and tests your balance and a few other things. Then it challenges you to a few exercises and then you have 30 min to play all these really fun games. You work up a sweat and have a blast and laugh a lot. Dad and I are going to sell the old treadmill because we won't be using it anymore since we have this. WAY more fun!

We took it to some church friend's house last night, mean age 60-65 and we had so much fun laughing and teaching them. We played bowling and golf for an hour just laughing and laughing, and then when 2 couples left our friends Diana an Gerry were left. Diana had to run to the store late so while she was out, I set Dad and Gerry up playing Mario Cart against each other on their 72" plasma tv no less and it was the funniest thing to watch. These 2 (very similar ) 60+ men sitting there, tongues hanging out concentrating wtih their little steering wheels racing thru Coconut Mall!